PRINCIPLE OF ACTIVATION IN SOCIAL POLICY AND ITS RELATION TO ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

The paper focuses on activation bias of current social policies and its relation to the alleviation of poverty and social exclusion. The activation is viewed as a policy paradigm that changes relationship between the welfare state and the individuals. The author distinguishes between narrow and broader understandings of the activation approach. In the broader sense, the activation aims at raising opportunities to fully-fledged social participation in all domains of society. In the narrow sense, the activation is only related to the labour market participation and decreasing of unemployment. He analyses three forms of activation that are important in order to reduce poverty and social exclusion: workfare strategies embodied in the social assistance systems, changes of the key parameters of tax-benefit systems, and last but not least the active labour market policies. The author pays attention to their potential to activate poor people and their consequences both for the target groups and social policy. The focus is also on the political discourses and assumptions which determine implementation of these programmes. Finally, the paper deals with activation potential of Slovak social policy and suggests some principles how to evaluate it.